With the announcement of the official schedule for the Men's Soccer tournament at the 2016 Rio Olympics, fans can now anticipate the start of the tournament in earnest.
Brazil as a nation will be hoping for a much better showing at the Olympics than what they produced at the Copa América Centenario and the likely return of Neymar to the national team fold should boost their chances.
Previous gold-medalists, Mexico, will be hoping to shock the world once again and could very well do as their team consists of quite a few young, bright talents that also featured at the recent edition of the Copa America.
Germany are also in with a shout and could feature some players currently with the senior team at Euro 2016 in France currently taking place.
Day One: the hosts take on South Africa while others face tricky challenges
Brazil open up their campaign against South Africa and their fans will be looking at this as a straight-forward three points. The first day of the tournament also throws up three intriguing matches; Portugal kick off their tournament against Argentina, Sweden opens Group B against Colombia and Mexico square off against Germany. Most rosters have not been finalised yet but based on the available players for the above-mentioned nations, these matches could prove key to all of the respective teams' aspirations.
Day Two: Sweden and Nigeria could be the tie of the round
Current European Under 21 Championship title holders Sweden will face Nigeria in their second group match. This current crop of young players have given their fans much hope about their potential especially after their run in the European championships but Nigeria do pose a considerable threat as they tend to do in most tournaments.
Day Two also throws up a potential banana-skin for Argentina as they will face-off against Algeria. Algeria, along with Nigeria always have the potential to be very difficult teams to beat and as Algeria continues to improve as a nation, we should not be surprised if they pull off an upset here. The last key match could be between Japan and Colombia. Both teams have been pencilled in as teams that could go far in the tournament dependant on their final position in the group.
Day Three: the final round of matches
Day Three could prove decisive for Denmark, Brazil, Algeria and Argentina. Algeria and Argentina face each other the final group game which could either spell the end for one of them or decide with route they will take in the knockout stages of the tournament.
Depending on the result, the winners of this group (Group D) could potentially face a quarterfinal against Mexico or Germany who are the favourites to qualify for the quarterfinal as well from Group C. In Group A, Denmark face Brazil in their final game and even though Brazil will be listed as the away side in this fixture, Denmark will have to fight the "12th man" that is the Brazilian fans if they hope to qualify for the quarterfinals Group B will also see a showdown between Colombia and Nigeria who will potentially be fighting for a second place finish in the group, subject to Sweden's performances overall.